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Liechtenstein
Fürstentum Liechtenstein |image1 = Liechtenstein.jpg|Female Screenshot 2019-12-25 at 7.28.32 PM.png|Male FlagLiech.png|Flag Flag of Liechtenstein.svg.png|Flag Staatswappen-Liechtensteins.svg.png|Coat of Arms |author = oftacy soviet_uwo (Male) |dates_of_life = January 23rd, 1719 |capital = Vaduz |national_anthem = Oben am jungen Rhein (eng. High on the Young Rhine)|official_language = German|national day = August 15th|population = 38,547 |currency = Swiss franc |friends = Switzerland Germany |National sport = Soccer |National food = Asparagus Hafalaab Kasknopfl Liver Mueseli Pastries Ribel}} Liechtenstein '''is an unpopular character in Countryhumans, Liechtenstein is mostly depicted as a girl. This country borders Austria and Switzerland. Description Appearance Liechtenstein wears a crown on her head and wears skirts and shirts and Mary Jane shoes. Personality Liechtenstein is a nice and friendly girl, she likes flowers and crowns. (Not flower crowns, that’s Ukraine’s thing.) She is somewhat shy but can also be shown as wanting to be as loved as Germany, but doesn’t know how to be noticed without being annoying, which she desperately wants to avoid. However, she sometimes, when she gets angry, is not afraid to speak her mind. She is also interested in castles and dynasties. Interests * Crowns * Flowers * Castles * Dynasties Flag Meaning '''Liechtenstein's flag was officially adopted on June 24, 1937. The flags blue and red have been representative of Liechtenstein since it was part of the Holy Roman Empire in the 17th century. The golden crown is symbolic of its independence, and its recognition as a principality.https://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/flags/countrys/europe/liechten.htm History Early history The oldest traces of human existence in what is now Liechtenstein date back to the Middle Paleolithic era. Neolithic farming settlements were initially founded in the valleys around 5300 BCE. The Hallstatt and La Tène cultures flourished during the late Iron Age, from around 450 BCE—possibly under some influence of both the Greek and Etruscan civilizations. One of the most important tribal groups in the Alpine region was the Helvetii. In 58 BCE, at the Battle of Bibracte, Julius Caesar defeated the Alpine tribes, therefore bringing the region under close control of the Roman Republic. By 15 BCE, Tiberius—destined to be the second Roman emperor—with his brother, Drusus, conquered the entirety of the Alpine area. Liechtenstein was then integrated into the Roman province of Raetia. The area was maintained by the Roman military, who also maintained large legionary camps at Brigantium (Austria), near Lake Constance, and at Magia (Swiss). A Roman road that ran through the territory was also created and maintained by these groups. In 259/60 Brigantium was destroyed by the Alemanni, a Germanic people who settled in the area in around 450 CE. In the Early Middle Ages, the Alemanni settled the eastern Swiss plateau by the 5th century and the valleys of the Alps by the end of the 8th century, with Liechtenstein located at the eastern edge of Alemannia. In the 6th century, the entire region became part of the Frankish Empire following Clovis I's victory over the Alemanni at Tolbiac in 504. The area that later became Liechtenstein remained under Frankish hegemony (Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties) until the empire was divided by the Treaty of Verdun in 843 CE, following the death of Charlemagne. The territory of present-day Liechtenstein was under the possession of East Francia. It would later be reunified with Middle Francia under the Holy Roman Empire, around 1000 CE. Until about 1100, the predominant language of the area was Romansch, but thereafter German began to gain ground in the territory. In 1300, an Alemannic population—the Walsers, who originated in Valais—entered the region and settled. The mountain village of Triesenberg still preserves features of Walser dialect into the present century.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein#History Foundation of a dynasty By 1200, dominions across the Alpine plateau were controlled by the Houses of Savoy, Zähringer, Habsburg, and Kyburg. Other regions were accorded the Imperial immediacy that granted the empire direct control over the mountain passes. When the Kyburg dynasty fell in 1264, the Habsburgs under King Rudolph I (Holy Roman Emperor in 1273) extended their territory to the eastern Alpine plateau that included the territory of Liechtenstein. This region was enfeoffed to the Counts of Hohenems until the sale to the Liechtenstein dynasty in 1699. In 1396 Vaduz (the southern region of Liechtenstein) gained imperial immediacy, i.e. it became subject to the Holy Roman Emperor alone. The family, from which the principality takes its name, originally came from Liechtenstein Castle in Lower Austria which they had possessed from at least 1140 until the 13th century (and again from 1807 onwards). Liechtenstein's acquired land, predominantly in Moravia, Lower Austria, Silesia, and Styria. As these territories were all held in feudal tenure from more senior feudal lords, particularly various branches of the Habsburgs, the Liechtenstein dynasty was unable to meet a primary requirement to qualify for a seat in the Imperial diet (parliament), the Reichstag. Even though several Liechtenstein princes served several Habsburg rulers as close advisers, without any territory held directly from the Imperial throne, they held little power in the Holy Roman Empire. For this reason, the family sought to acquire lands that would be classed as unmittelbar (immediate) or held without any intermediate feudal tenure, directly from the Holy Roman Emperor. During the early 17th century Karl I of Liechtenstein was made a Fürst (prince) by the Holy Roman Emperor Matthias after siding with him in a political battle. Hans-Adam I was allowed to purchase the minuscule Herrschaft ("Lordship") of Schellenberg and county of Vaduz (in 1699 and 1712 respectively) from the Hohenems. Tiny Schellenberg and Vaduz had exactly the political status required: no feudal lord other than their comital sovereign and the suzerain Emperor Principality On 23 January 1719, after the lands had been purchased, Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, decreed that Vaduz and Schellenberg were united and elevated the newly formed territory to the dignity of Fürstentum (principality) with the name "Liechtenstein" in honor of "his true servant, Anton Florian of Liechtenstein". It was on this date that Liechtenstein became a sovereign member state of the Holy Roman Empire. It is a testament to the pure political expediency of the purchase that the Princes of Liechtenstein never visited their new principality for almost 100 years. By the early 19th century, as a result of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the Holy Roman Empire came under the effective control of France, following the crushing defeat at Austerlitz by Napoleon in 1805. Emperor Francis II abdicated, ending more than 960 years of feudal government. Napoleon reorganized much of the Empire into the Confederation of the Rhine. This political restructuring had broad consequences for Liechtenstein: the historical imperial, legal, and political institutions had been dissolved. The state ceased to owe an obligation to any feudal lord beyond its borders. Modern publications generally attribute Liechtenstein's sovereignty to these events. Its prince ceased to owe an obligation to any suzerain. From 25 July 1806, when the Confederation of the Rhine was founded, the Prince of Liechtenstein was a member, in fact, a vassal, of its hegemon, styled protector, the French Emperor Napoleon I, until the dissolution of the confederation on 19 October 1813. Soon afterward, Liechtenstein joined the German Confederation (20 June 1815 – 24 August 1866), which was presided over by the Emperor of Austria. In 1818, Prince Johann I granted the territory a limited constitution. In that same year, Prince Aloys became the first member of the House of Liechtenstein to set foot in the principality that bore their name. The next visit would not occur until 1842. Developments during the 19th century included: * 1836, the first factory, for making ceramics, was opened. * 1861, the Savings and Loans Bank was founded along with the first cotton-weaving mill. * 1868, the Liechtenstein Army was disbanded for financial reasons. * 1872, a railway line between Switzerland and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was constructed through Liechtenstein. * 1886, two bridges over the Rhine to Switzerland were built. 20th century Until the end of World War I, Liechtenstein was closely tied first to the Austrian Empire and later to Austria-Hungary; the ruling princes continued to derive much of their wealth from estates in the Habsburg territories, and spent much of their time at their two palaces in Vienna. The economic devastation caused by the war forced the country to conclude a customs and monetary union with its other neighbor, Switzerland. At the time of the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it was argued that Liechtenstein, as a fief of the Holy Roman Empire, was no longer bound to the emerging independent state of Austria, since the latter did not consider itself the legal successor to the empire. This is partly contradicted by Liechtenstein's perception that the dethroned Austro-Hungarian Emperor still maintained an abstract heritage of the Holy Roman Empire. Franz I, Prince of Liechtenstein from 1929 to 1938 In 1929, 75-year-old Prince Franz I succeeded to the throne. He had just married Elisabeth von Gutmann, a wealthy woman from Vienna whose father was a Jewish businessman from Moravia. Although Liechtenstein had no official Nazi party, a Nazi sympathy movement arose within its National Union party. Local Liechtenstein Nazis identified Elisabeth as their Jewish "problem". In March 1938, just after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, Franz named as regent his 31-year-old grandnephew and heir-presumptive, Prince Franz Joseph. Franz died in July that year, and Franz Joseph succeeded to the throne. Franz Joseph II first moved to Liechtenstein in 1938, a few days after Austria's annexation. During World War II, Liechtenstein remained officially neutral, looking to neighboring Switzerland for assistance and guidance, while family treasures from dynastic lands and possessions in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia were taken to Liechtenstein for safekeeping. At the close of the conflict, Czechoslovakia and Poland, acting to seize what they considered German possessions, expropriated the entirety of the Liechtenstein dynasty's properties in those three regions. The expropriations (subject to the modern legal dispute at the International Court of Justice) included over 1,600 km2 (618 sq mi) of agricultural and forest land (most notably the UNESCO listed Lednice–Valtice Cultural Landscape), and several family castles and palaces. In 2005 it was revealed that Jewish laborers from the Strasshof concentration camp, provided by the SS, had worked on estates in Austria owned by Liechtenstein's Princely House. Citizens of Liechtenstein were forbidden to enter Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. More recently the diplomatic conflict revolving around the controversial postwar Beneš decrees resulted in Liechtenstein not sharing international relations with the Czech Republic or Slovakia. Diplomatic relations were established between Liechtenstein and the Czech Republic on 13 July 2009, and with Slovakia on 9 December 2009. Politics Government Liechtenstein rules under a constitutional monarchy, in a mixed constitution. Diplomacy Switzerland Organizations and Affiliations Liechtenstein is the only microstate (not counting Iceland by population) that is part of the EEA. Lichtenstein joined the EEA on 1 May 1995 after becoming a full member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) in 1991 (previously, it had been in EFTA as part of Switzerland).https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein%E2%80%93European_Union_relations *European Bank for Reconstruction and Development *United Nations Relationships Family * Austria — mother * Switzerland — older sister * Germany — uncle * Luxembourg — cousin Friends Neutral Enemies Opinions References Category:Characters Category:Country Category:Europe Category:Eastern Hemisphere Category:Microstates Category:Catholic Countries Category:EEA members Category:Kingdoms Category:Germanic Countries Category:Christian Countries Category:Everything Category:UN Members